The pinned collection is stored in about 144 Delta-style steel cabinets, the slides in standard (100-slide) boxes on open shelves, and the alcoholic vials in larger jars on metal shelves in the alcoholic collection facility. Our cases are large, 72-drawer capacity, double-door cabinets. Dimensions of the drawers are 19 1/4 x 19 1/4 x 2 7/8 inches. They are built of wood with wood-framed glass tops. Within the drawers, specimens are arranged in cardboard unit trays with polyethylene foam bottoms. The basic unit tray is 2 1/16 x 2 1/16 x 2 inches deep; others are twice as wide, twice as large in both dimensions, or 8 times as large (8 per drawer).

Priority in Preparation of Specimens

Incoming, unprocessed specimens are first reviewed by the collection manager in cooperation with the curators and their priority for preparation assessed. They may be given to a technical assistant for immediate preparation, or they may be relegated to one of several lower priority levels. Priorities for processing of materials are as follows:

• Specimens which may deteriorate if not processed immediately.
• Specimens required for immediate research by staff and associated students, visiting scientists, or affiliates or which are required for immediate loan.
• Specimens for which there is a known interest and need in the entomological community.
• Specimens for which special commitments exist.
• Specimens that augment the strengths of the collections and add to their comparative base.
• Specimens from geographic areas or habitats of special interest (e.g., from endangered habitats, areas under collective study, poorly known habitats or regions, &c.).

In recent years special effort has been made to avoid increasing the numbers of specimens relegated to inaccessible status among the museum's backlog. To this end, unaccessioned samples which contain material of low preparation priority for Entomology, or that are beyond our ability to prepare in a timely manner, but are known to contain specimens of interest to other researchers or museums, are shipped to these museums or researchers. These then become the property of those institutions, subject only to various mutually desirable agreements. This policy has the substantial advantage of making valuable material available for study that would otherwise remain inaccessible in Entomology's backlog for long periods of time. As a result of this approach, no new material has been added to the backlog in the last seven years, and more material has been made available to the systematics community than could have been prepared as a result of the resources of Entomology alone.